Archive for May, 2013

3 years ago today, We were on board the MV Rachel Corrie, part of the Freedom Flotilla, Today , as a mark of respect we and others visited the Mavi Marmara Monument in Gaza port to respectfully remember those murdered on board the Mavi Marmara ship…

There are plans for developing a more cohesive strategy concerning production of food while using water that’s not optimal for potable use.

2- A brief description of the Gaza strip:

Includes a general portrayal of the landscape and surroundings, as well as complexities created by the siege.

3- The population increase:

Due to forced migration of refugees, the depletion of fresh water of the western aquifer has intensified.

4- Ways to acquire potable water:

Outlines the difficulties of desalination and attempts to attain fresh water from outside the strip.

5- Contamination:

The water that’s being used is highly contaminated due to infrastructural issues that have been created by bombings. Furthermore the regions soil tends to be highly porous, meaning that infiltration happens quickly.

6- Stolen resources:

Provides a historic perspective on the depletion of water in the Gaza strip.

7- Attempting to build:

Projects to build desalination and waste water treatment plants are underway, but it may be too little to late.

8- Committees, corporations, authorities and military might:

Covers the obstinance and rejections that encircle the water issue in Palestine.

9- Water born disease:

Touches upon the basic features of disease in Gaza related to water which especially afflict children.

-Water for agriculture

“Do you see those rotten posts in the water next to the coast? That was a harbor, from there I had an apple from Lebonon” said Ghassan Qishawi. He’s an expert on water sanitation and desalination.

Ghassan consults companies and governments about the water situation in his place of origin, that being the Gaza strip. On April 25th he visited with me so that I could convey an updated picture of not only what’s happening with his field of study in Palestine, but more importantly what could ensue if intelligent steps aren’t taken immediately to minimize the encroaching dangers to Gaza via lack of resources.

The Palestinian Water Authority (PWA) has a multitude of reports that analyze comparative optional proposals for properly treating waste water. http://www.pwa.ps/

However their plans for waste waster treatment and fresh water renewal have only been met with minimal investments. In fact less than 2 percent of the needed funding has come through for these programs.

– World Bank

Currently high nitrogen levels far exceed World Health Organization standards (50 mg/litre) along with other chemicals such as chloride in extremely abstracted areas. This is especially the case near the coast, in some spots chloride levels are as high as 10,000 mg/Liter. -CMWU

The chemical pollutants are on average “three times higher than the recommended level by the World Health Organization.”

-Press TV

Chloride levels are indicative of the amount of salinity within water, which is a major factor in preventing Gaza residents from being able to drink 90 percent of the tap water.

– UN 2020

“NO3 levels for water in Palestine range from 400 mg/litre to 70 mg/litre. In Gaza 70 mg/litre is deemed acceptable since it’s so common.” Ghassan reluctantly stated.

However the PWA wishes to use waste water’s high nitrogen content to the advantage of the agricultural sector. Ideally it will supply treated water to farmers at a cheap price so that the use of illegally drilled wells will halt.

“There’s no way of knowing how many illegal wells have been dug since most of them are merely 2 to 3 meters deep and are used as supplemental sources of water for washing clothes, dishes, the floor, etc. Our rough estimates are that there are three to five thousand illegal wells within the bounds of Gaza.” Ghassan explained.

This poor handling of water is due to the last few years of Gaza’s sputtering economy. Which has in turn coaxed more residents to grow their own food.

-UNEP

Farming in Gaza is by en large a collection of family operations that grow vegetables for market in sections of 5 to 10 dunams each.

As of last September, produce bought and sold in Gaza is almost entirely from within its borders.

Yet the loose organizational decisions of such small family enterprises has disadvantages that drive the price of produce down excessively when too much of one crop is being grown. The lack of broad cooperation as to who grows what might not be such a major factor elsewhere, but with Gaza’s limited space it means prices drastically spike and dive for individual families. Planting is thus a gamble as far as predicting what price products will fetch in markets.

These inefficiencies are a byproduct of an economy dealing with rapidly changing perimeters.

-A brief description of Gaza strip:

Desertification is expanding in the south, the Israeli navy won’t allow for fishing or trade in the west.

Prices for goods coming through the tunnels on the Egyptian side are marked way up.

Ranging in width from six to twelve kilometers and having a length of over 40 kilometers means that calling it a strip is indeed appropriate. Despite its size there’s a relatively diverse landscape that ranges from sand-dunes near the arid Mediterranean coast to lush green fields further inland. When combined with architectural features that similarly contrast, such as tight mazes of exterior concrete corridors that abruptly meet spacious homes standing alone in a field; Gaza visually conveys a semblance of the complexities that are under its surface.

Approximately 380 square kilometers creates Gaza. Although the apparent 300 meters in length of ground between it and the Israeli army on the northern and eastern borders lessen the amount of usable land by a considerable measure.

This is especially problematic since most of what’s deemed by the Israeli military as the buffer zone could be utilized as farmland. In fact 17 to 35 percent of the fertile soil (depending on what’s considered arable land) in the Gaza strip can’t be safely approached by Palestinians, let alone cultivated.

-Al-Haq

-OCHR

– The population Increase

Gaza has an average density of nearly 12,000 people per square mile. It has the seventh fastest population growth rate in the world. This increase of people taxes the already stretched resources. In fact conversations about the essential substance in question are centered around one word, crisis.

Fresh water consumption is predicted to increase by 60 percent based on the amount of abstraction taking place currently, combined with the expected population increase. It’s estimated that 260 MCM of consumable water will be needed by the year 2020.

-PWA

-UN 2020

A majority of the Palestinians in Gaza come from families who were forced from their homes during the Nakba. They became refugees within the confines of Gaza’s borders. There’s no doubt that what has become 1.7 million people in such a small place creates a heavy toll on the environment, which in turn effects local life in all forms.

Rate of abstraction based on numbers from 2007: “…163 million cubic metres per year (CMWU, 2008).” This suggests that fresh water is rapidly decreasing in areas with the greatest use. Thus potable water is being replaced by seawater from the Mediterranean. -UNEP

This increase in the aquifers salinity has entered the water cycle indefinitely for the sewage has in turn become more saline.

-UNEP

Basic math can illustrate the reason for concern, even if the water’s salinity is not considered. The abstraction from the aquifer on a yearly basis is now estimated to be 170 million cubic meters (MCM) per year. The average yearly regeneration of the aquifer is roughly 55 million cubic meters per year. -PCHR

This means the abstraction of water from the aquifer is about three times what it should be if sustainability of this precious resource were to be achieved.

-Ways to acquire potable water:

The question is; what other choice do people have?

If continuing to abstract from the aquifer is decided upon then desalinating brackish water, which lies on the limestone base of the aquifer, has roughly half the concentration of saline compared to seawater. This means it’s easier to convert into fresh water, hence less expensive. -GETAP

“Using brackish water is more achievable. Based upon people’s average income the price for such water could be reasonably low.”

-Ghassan Qishawi

Yet if brackish water is used that means more water is pulled from the aquifer, hence its ability to regenerate is stifled and the long term damage to its ability to eventually provide fresh water will become an impossibility. However finding water close to Gaza is important so that subsidies are not needed in order for people to purchase it. Water within close proximity that would be affordable resides in two aquifers. One being to the east in historic Palestine and the other being the highly disputed western aquifer.

-GETAP

A significant amount of the second water system is within the bounds of Gaza. In addition Lake Tiberias’ water enters the coastal aquifer basin that’s outside of Gaza, yet this water could be a key supplemental source for the thirsty strip with negligible loss on the Israeli side. The Israel National Water Carrier is capable of providing water from this source.”The principles of customary international water law – which binds all States, whether or not they have signed specific conventions – support a case that the Gaza population should receive a much higher volume of fresh water from the resources shared with Israel.” -GETAP

Based on numbers from 2009

Palestine receives, along with Jordan, slightly over 5 percent from the confiscated water that the Zionist government has at its disposal. This is even below the amount of water that Israeli industry uses.

– Wiki

800,000 MCM of groundwater is used on a yearly basis for Israelis, but 1,000,000 MCM is available for consumption. This is an adequate supply of water for use in Gaza and the rest of the region annually. -grassroots international

“One of my colleagues joked that he knows how to fix Palestine’s water problem, he said all it needs is a river.” Ghassan chuckled while relaying this to me, for he realizes that many people do not understand that flowing water in this regard is simply not normally found on Palestine’s landscape anymore.

In fact the closest to such a feature in Gaza is the Wadi basin, which would naturally deposit a highly fluctuating amount of water from much of historic Palestine to the Mediterranean sea, but currently it amounts to an open cesspit. This is directly the cause of the trapping of water further up stream.

“Most notably the Israeli reservoirs trap the flow of water from going south-west to Gaza. Water trickles towards Gaza when there’s an overflow.” Ghassan described.

KKL-JNF (Keren Kayemeth Leisrael- Jewish National Fund)

has 220 reservoirs, 40 of these were made for the sole purpose of trapping floodwaters from all over the country. – KKL- JNF

The reservoir building company considers water from aquifers as there for the taking in every regard. Claiming the aquifers contents “remains stored naturally and is pumped from wells and springs.” -KKl-JNF

Vastly for Israeli usage is the vital part they tactically left out.

-Contamination:

Wadi is no longer in contention to be a natural refuge as it was intended. It’s filled with untreated sewage and solid waste. When on the newly reconstructed Wadi bridge a pungent and foul smell is inescapable. They’re building a system of controlled flood plains that will hopefully provide some level of relief from the toxic expulsion of mostly raw sewage into the sea.

The specific reasons for how it got this way are complex, but the origination of what has stifled the natural flow in this area simply point toward the apartheid system. A direct result of the racism that plagues this region is the decline in waste management at Wadi. It has been damaged by a barrage of unfortunate circumstances, including bombs.

“…When the Israelis bombed a bridge between the two areas, they destroyed a water pipe underneath it.” -ingaza

Not just one or two sanitation pipes were accidentally hit, wastewater management facilities were directly targeted.

“The station (that was destroyed) was…””…designed to pump waste water to Gaza’s main waste water treatment plant.”

-CMWU

The Israeli military has wreaked havoc on all branches of Palestinian civil society’s infrastructure.

“… anaerobic pond no. 3 was damaged, its embankment destroyed, and more than 100,000 m3 of wastewater and sludge spilled”…”UNDP estimated that 55,000 square metres of agricultural land were impacted by this spill.” -UNEP

“According to the Coastal Municipalities Water Utility, 30 kilometers of water networks, 11 wells, and 6,000 home water tanks were damaged during the operation, (Operation Cast Lead).” -b’tsalem

“…severe damage, from Beit Hanoun to Rafah, includes underground piping blasted apart by Israeli bombings of civilian streets, homes and in open areas..” “In Khan Younis, Israeli attacks damaged a storage facility holding 350,000 liters of water, as well as a major line in the Amal neighborhood of Khan Younis..” -electric intifada -without power

Bombings such as Operation Cast Lead solidified the deterioration of the fresh and waste water systems.

It’s no surprise that the ability to handle waste during this time “declined from 89 percent in 2007 to 73 percent in 2008.” -UNEP

The Gaza war (Operation Cast Lead) ended January 18th of 2009. As is always the case in such instances, reconstruction takes much longer than the process of destruction, and in the case of Gaza’s infrastructure it has yet to fully recover.

-Stolen resources

The wars conducted by the Zionist regime since withdrawing the illegal settlers from Gaza in 2004 have obviously further crippled every aspect of life in the strip. Yet there’s no doubt the illegal settlements used Gaza’s land intensively, hence they stole water. Once the Zionists military seized the area in 1967 the depletion of natural resources increased even more rapidly. By the 90’s illegal Israeli settlers were estimated to “…extract about 3 million cubic metres of water per year (92 percent for agriculture). ” -UNEP

“Many settlements are chosen based upon where it’s best to infiltrate the aquifer.” replied Ghassan once I verbalized UNEP’s quote about illegal settlers water usage. The same tactics are used with all natural resources, especially with oil and natural gas.

Ghassan accepted that there was a lack of institutional development and capacity on the Palestinian side, but he said the Palestinians were caught in an unequal, asymmetric dispute. For example, Palestinians have not been allowed to develop any new production wells in the West Bank since the 1967 war.

-guardian 2

Ghassan and I got up to view the natural gas rigs in the distance, a relatively new feature on the waters off the shared coast.

“You see the far rig is just barely on the Israeli side, it pulls natural gas from underneath Palestinian waters.”

However that’s not the most obvious confiscation of natural gas. The smaller one to the south that can’t be contested as being in Palestinian waters was built by the British Gas Group. It was intended to be utilized by Palestine and Israel, along with the BG Group that discovered the resource and built the rig taking a significant percentage of the earnings. -BG Group

Palestine and Israel were to share the immense wealth created by the natural gas rigs off the shore of Gaza. The actual operation of the rigs was supposed to be orchestrated by the Palestinians, and Palestine was to receive an immense amount of power by way of natural gas for not only Gaza, but the West Bank.

“Of course the entire deal went sour, the Israeli government has full control over it now.” Ghassan articulated all this without flinching. He’s well aware of the ways in which his country is being stolen from. There’s no doubt that it’s thievery, but the implications for what Israel is doing are far more sinister.

During the bombings of Gaza in 2006, they hit Gaza’s only power plant, crippling it to the point of merely being able to supply a fraction of power. (30% of what is needed in Gaza -UN 2020)

-electric intifada -without power

The electrical plant is dependent on fuel from Israel. Besides this Egyptians supply 10 percent of the needs of south Gaza.

-bloomberg

The rest of the electricity is supplied directly from Israel. It has not yet allowed for development of additional electrical power plants.

According to the energy authority, Gaza needs 350 megawatts of electricity. Israel provides 120MW, Egypt 22MW and – since it was bombed by Israel in 2006 – the Gaza power plant has a maximum capacity of 120MW. The deficit means power cuts have been a feature of daily life for several years, but the recent crisis has increased their length and frequency.

-guardian 3

– Attempting to build

In the unlikely event that organizations or governments provide Gaza with enough desalination plants to cover their water needs in the coming years (it would take 6 years from now in order for the PWA to see its plans to maturity -PWA) extra electricity needs to be provided for such industry. This is one of the reasons potential investors have become reluctant about such expenditures. In fact each desalination facility requires its own electrical plant.

Currently there are four industrial operations concerning either desalination, waste water reclamation or both at different levels of construction.

The production level of all these facilities as far as how much of an impact they will have on the overall fresh water shortage is speculative. This is partly due to the fact that nobody knows if the power to provide these facilities to function at full capacity will be constant.

“… the Israeli blockade has seen it (the electrical power plant) starved for fuel, usually operating at less than half of its operational capacity.”

-world-news

The one certainty is that even in optimal conditions these expensive industrial plants would only provide a fraction of adequate fresh water for drinking or agricultural relief. In contrast it’s especially worth noting the common way of dealing with waste by those that have no alternative.

“In the north sandy soil is 5 to 6 meters down, so septic areas are dug shallowly. However in Khan Younes heavy clay deposits are at that level. Therefore they drill lower to reach the sandy soil.

Their septic tanks are usually made about 30 meters bellow ground. This is very dangerous for the aquifer. At that depth feces can leak directly into the water supply.”

– Qishawi

There are projects that the Israeli military allows to proceed, this simply means that they don’t block passage of technical parts through the Kerem Shalom boarder crossing. The projects they approve are often ones that have goods bought from Israeli companies. Israel formally considers these endeavors to be tackling regional problems. This means that they either recognize that if the aquifer (which is connected to all of historic Palestine, but is essentially the tail of the natural water drainage system) in the southern region is completely lost it could eventually have an impact on their own supply.

Or it’s possible that they’re allowing for these attempts now so that when the situation worsens and they begin to be blamed even more so for crimes against humanity they can use this token jest as an example of their cooperation with the people of Gaza.

“However, what gives the scheme at least the possibility of success is that the principle of a desalination plant for Gaza is now backed by Israel, all Mediterranean governments, the UN, the EU and key development banks.” -guardian

I must point out that in this quote they describe such a scheme as possibly producing only a single desalination plant.

Israeli boarder security often labels technical parts as having duel purpose, meaning that they are rejected from entering Gaza due to the fear that they would be used in military operations against Israel. – gisha

This process of discriminating which parts are and are not allowed into the Kerem Shalom crossing has done nothing to increase Israel’s security since illegal tunnel operations continue through the Egyptian border.

This further strengthens the theory that the goods accepted through the Kerem Shalom border are partly for show and partly as a way to control organizations that must maintain a relationship with Israel and thus buy Israeli products for projects in Gaza.

However it isn’t all for show or advancement of business. For even though Israel is allowing parts from designated projects to come in, catalogs are kept. “Pictures of the assembled mechanics are sent to Israeli government officials so they are sure of the location of each section.”

-Qishawi

These restrictions have stifled numerous attempts to create not only water plants but industry in many forms. The result has been the continued shrinking of Gaza’s private industrial sector. It’s now a minor percentage of the overall working economy.

Yet if there was more industry in Gaza there would be more pollution, and it already can’t appropriately deal with such waste while the siege is in place.

“Under present conditions, this practice (burning solid waste) has been reintroduced more or less as a necessity according to the local authorities, to avoid smell and health hazards and to reduce the volume of waste.” -WE

There’s not enough of an area to throw waste away in Gaza, so it inevitably ends up close to water filtration sites. Besides stacking it in areas where leaching continues to grow in volume, selections of trash are compacted. This also uses a tremendous amount of energy.

“There is a small pilot project for solid waste separation. People are in danger of exposure to all sorts of toxic chemicals when trash gets mixed. For example one of the most serious trash related problems in Gaza is when watermelons are in season. They increase cross-contamination when combined with other trash because the high water content of the melons creates the possibility for leaching to increase.” said Ghassan.

Clean water is capped at 70 to 90 liters per person, per day on average in Palestine. This does not meet World Health Organization standards. -UN 2020

“The aquifer could become unusable as early as 2016, with the damage irreversible by 2020.” -UNEP

In other words if abstraction doesn’t cease soon, an aquifer within the borders of Gaza will no longer exist.

-Committees, corporations, authorities and military might:

Mekorot is the Israeli water corporation that supplies 4.7 million cubic meters per year out of the 180 million cubic meters per year required for Gaza residents, it doesn’t facilitate an exchange of water that meets WHO standards due to the piping that supplies it. In fact the pipes are made of concrete and asbestos.

-Qishawi

Fortunately it’s being replaced with PVC pipes made in Gaza by the siksik piping company, which is one of the few success stories of Gaza’s industry. So far 65 percent of the outdated plumbing has been replaced.

The question then emerges; what do you do with contaminated material when you don’t have facilities or space to properly dispose of it?

“… hazardous substances in Gaza’s waste sites include asbestos, used on many roofs in Gaza and found amidst bombing debris, chemicals and toxins from Israeli bombs, and hazardous healthcare waste from hospitals including infectious or pathogenic waste, blood and body fluids, and radioactive or chemical waste, according to a September 2009 United Nations Environmental Programme (UNEP) report.”

-ingaza

“We don’t have sufficient labs to test enough of the Gaza population for hepatitis A or B. If the situation remains as it is there is an expectation of cholera. From here it is possible that it could spread throughout the Mediterranean due to the massive effluent waste ejected into the sea.” -Qishawi

At least 90,000 cubic meters of wastewater is ejected from Gaza each day. -UN 2020

When scientists tested the levels of pollution in the waters from the coast of Gaza they were not surprised to find that Enterococci levels were well above World Health Organization’s standards.

-UNEP

Only a quarter of the waste, 30,000 MCM per day is reused and treated for farming. -UN 2020

This means most waste water, partially treated or otherwise, is going straight into the land by way of lagoons, or out to sea by places like Wadis. -UNEP

If water treatment can’t be afforded by Palestinians, as it stands, and if no company or government comes to immediate aid, as it needs to; what is there to do?

“A Palestinian family spends on average 8 per cent of its monthly expenditure on purchasing water, as compared to the worldwide average of 3.5 per cent. This figure jumps as high as 50 per cent for those Palestinian families forced to rely on tankered water. In stark contrast, Israeli settlers living illegally in the Jordan Valley pay on average just 0.9 per cent of their monthly expenditure of water, while they are allocated 18 times more water than the per capita amount allocated to Palestinians.” -PWA

At a certain point there’s no other alternative but to face the reality that presents itself. In this case it’s that the Israeli military has seized water supplies while a puppet committee feigns a joint effort to manage the supply.

In 1995 the Joint Water Committee was established (JWC). It supposedly has control over the development and allotment of water throughout all of Historic Palestine.

“In reality, however, Israel has used the JWC to veto PWA efforts to develop Palestine’s water and wastewater sector and service delivery capacity to keep up with the needs of its growing population.” -PWA

“If it’s a win/win situation for the Israeli’s then a particular measure will be accepted by the JWC, but if it’s a win/lose (the winning by the Palestinians and losing of water by the Israelis) they (the Israelis on the water committee) will contest the measure.”

-Ghassan Qishawi

There’s less access for Palestinians per capita to fresh water than now than there was before the formation of the JWC in 1995. -PWA

Even the formation of the Palestinian Water Authority is entrenched in uneven apportioning of water.

“The Palestinian Water Authority (PWA) was established under the 1995 Interim Agreement (Oslo II) to develop the Palestinian water sector. This included taking over responsibility for the service delivery of an agreed quota of water allocated to Palestinians under the 1995 agreement. Originally intended to be applicable for a period of no more than 5 years, this quota is still used by Israel as a ceiling to determine the amount of water it allocates to Palestinians, some 17 years after it was originally negotiated, and despite the Palestinian population in the oPt having doubled.” -PWA

So the PWA was partly set up to distribute what is now a minor amount of resources. In contrast the big desalination plants (the bigger the plant, the cheaper the water) have been squandered by turmoil that has been partially fueled by this battle of resources.

Since Hamas took over Gaza in 2007 desalination plants that had been previously approved were abandoned, and USAID suspended its involvement in water related activities.

-al-monitor

– Water born disease:

Regardless of who’s in control in Gaza, neglecting a civilian population of essential resources is not an acceptable way of dealing with it, in fact that only intensifies and expands frustrations.

As an example of what’s vexing: When an adequate amount of clean water is not provided for people, the most at risk are the youth. Extreme levels of nitrates create illnesses such as methemoglobinaemia in children.

-UNEP

The symptoms of this disease include lethargic babies born with blue tinted skin. People in Gaza have an escalating amount of kidney diseases from water contamination among many other health related issues.

“According to international aid organizations, 20 percent of Gazan families have at least one child under age five who suffers from diarrhea as a result of polluted water. A UN study published in 2009 estimates that diarrhea is the cause of 12 percent of children’s deaths in Gaza. The lack of potable drinking water is liable to cause malnutrition in children and affect their physical and cognitive development.”

-b’tsalem

Acknowledging the apartheid system in Palestine is at the core of understanding why social interactions between it and Israel are strained at best. The simple case for why Gaza needs enough water to sustain the people living in it is unarguable. Regardless of which part of the spectrum one lies politically, the facts as far as what is ethically demanded in this situation inescapably leads toward Palestine being allotted an appropriate amount of resources so that people that live there, can indeed live.

(United Nations Human Rights Council) “Affirms that the human right to safe drinking water and sanitation is derived from the right to an adequate standard of living and inextricably related to the right to the highest attainable standard of physical and mental health, as well as the right to life and human dignity” -OHCHR

IRELAND PALESTINE SOLIDARITY CAMPAIGN

Irish cameraman again shot and injured by Israeli military in the West Bank

This evening, Friday 3rd May, Irish cameraman Tommy Donnellan was shot in the back, leg and arm by the Israeli military while filming a protest in the Palestinian village of Silwad in the occupied West Bank. Mr. Donnellan, who is from near Ballinasloe in Galway travelled to the West Bank in February. Today he sustained three wounds from a rubber-coated steel bullets which punctured his left leg, and bruised his back and upper right arm.

This is the third time Mr. Donnellan has been injured by the Israeli military in as many months. On 19th March, hesustained a wound from a rubber-coated steel bullet which punctured his upper right arm while filming a protest in Nabi Saleh. Last Friday 26th April he recieved a slight injury when he was struck by a concussion grenade in the right leg.

Iyad Burnat, an activist in the West Bank village of Bil’in said: “Tommy is seeking medical help in Ramallah hospital for the hole in his left leg. Following the injury to Tommy’s right leg from a stung grenade that was thrown at him last Friday in Silwad, and the injury he received in his right arm in March, it’s clear that the Israeli occupation forces are targeting Tommy.”

Mr Donnellan’s Leg

Mr Donnellan’s Arm

Mr Donnellan’s legs

Background

According to the International Solidarity Movement in Palestine, around four hundred Palestinians, joined by a handful of international activists, participated in today’s weekly demonstration organised by Silwad and Deir Jarir villages on their lands, upon which settlers from Ofra set up an illegal outpost more than four weeks ago.

This outpost consist of caravans and huts situated on Palestinian farm land that the residents of Silwad, Deir Jarir, Taybeh and Ein Yabrud have been denied access to for over a decade. A settlement outpost is the first move made by settlers when conducting a land-grab in the West Bank; establishing temporary buildings which are protected by the military and eventually made permanent, in order to establish ‘facts on the ground’ and steal Palestinian land.

This is the second weekly demonstration that the villages of Silwad and Deir Jarir have held together to protests the land theft and settler violence and more demonstrations are expected to be organised in the following weeks.

It’s certainly not what I expected and I don’t really know what I did expect. Not this though. Beautiful sandy beaches with that mediterranean feeling to them and waves that any potential tourist region would be crying out for. And then you have the ‘Gaza’, the Gaza that the western media focus wholly on, the war-torn, besieged, bombed out, concrete jungle of fear, resentment, sense of forgotteness and utter isolation from the rest of the world.

The contrast of these two worlds that is merged together on this 42 kilometer strip of land is mind boggling. Life & destruction, an abundance of resilience and yet a sense of being burned out at the same time, development and de-development on the same street corner.

After two weeks in Gaza it feels a little like being thrown into the epicenter of one of the beautifully powerful waves that line the coastline of this hellish paradise and being smashed against the coarse sand only to be spat out the other side with a sense of calmness and the feeling of the warm Palestinian sun on my head.

The incredible welcoming I have received here in Gaza is not comparable with any other that I have received in any part of the world.

I have been shown Gaza from as many angles as one extremely complex piece of land can have. I have met with copious amounts of human rights, women’s, children’s, arts, sports and cultural groups from international to local perspectives. I have been introduced to political leaders and grass roots supporters from the main parties that exist in this part of Palestine and met those in favor militant and non-violent resistance to the occupation. I have even made it into the much talked about tunnels that many people here see as the only life line they have with the outside world.

‘Our Mission’

As a small group from Ireland who came to run a marathon or two and support a children’s summer initiative and a freedom of movement project, we have been unable to achieve our original goals. The marathon was cancelled in Gaza due to disagreements between the UN agency that provides much of the support to the refugees in Gaza, UNRWA and the current Hamas government. Following this disappointment we were then unable to make the small trip from Gaza to Bethlehem to participate in the second ‘freedom of movement’ marathon because Israel closed the borders to internationals and more importantly to a group of elite Palestinian athletes who had been training to compete in the event. This event took place today, Sunday 21st in the West Bank just 70k away from Gaza city. ‘Hey, this is life here in Gaza my friends, what do you expect?’ is what we were told by the race favourite, Nader Al Massri who was denied access to run in the first ever West Bank sports event of its kind. Rather than feeling victimized around people who choose to see themselves as survivors, we have kept ourselves as busy as possible during our time in what many describe as the worlds largest open air prison.

We have witnessed some truly harrowing and hugely inspiring examples of life under siege and experience feelings of great empathy, anger, frustration and honest fear at times.

Evidence of the last military invasion of Gaza which took place less than six months ago is everywhere. It seems like every inch of the strip was attacked by air, sea and ground from every angle. The concrete rubble and metal from the buildings that were bombed litter the streets and reconstruction is everywhere you look. What is not visible from the streets however is the impact of the colossal loss of life and pain caused by grief of whole family’s being wiped off the face of the earth or those lying in beds in half broken buildings with mental and physical injuries from a senseless military onslaught which the world mostly turned a blind eye to.

We have been invited into so many family homes and asked to have breakfast, lunch, dinner or just cup of tea (chai in arabic) or arabic coffee and just sit and exchange conversations about life here and in our country. We are often asked the simple question of what we think about life in Palestine and those asking usually listen with great anticipation of what we have to say. I never know what to say to be honest. What do you say to people who have been cut off almost entirely from the rest of the world and who have been punished for electing a Government that the Western powers refuse to recognise or work with. Not to mention the constant bombardment of their towns and villages by F16 fighter jets, apache helicopters, tank and naval attacks.

This evening when sitting with a group of local UN staff who had invited us to one of their homes to eat dinner with them and meet their family, I was hit by a question from the younger brother of our host. He was quiet for most of the evening and clearly just listening to what was being said. Their was a lot of banter going on and as he was not engaging much I made the assumption that his English was not so strong. When he asked me his question and then explained what he wanted to do in University and with his life in Palestine I realised that his English was in fact very good and he was simply waiting for a good time to get his question off his chest.

He asked me what we were here in Gaza to do and if we had come to help his people, he looked me square in the eye and asked me how could we help the people of Palestine and Gaza. ‘How can you help lift this siege?’

I go to sleep tonight confused, without giving this 15 year old boy an answer.

How can we assist in the lifting of this siege of a people who have had enough and deserve more?